Feeding high quality nutritious feed to your chickens always ensure good health and high production from them. And well balanced feeding is the main factor to be successful in chicken farming business.
Nutritious feed also helps the chicken to keep them free from various types of diseases.
But there are some foods available that are not suitable for chicken’s health. As a chicken farmer you have to be conscious about those foods and you should not feed those to your chickens.
Learn more about what not to feed chickens.
Harmful Plants
Chickens are foraging creatures by nature. Naturally they avoid toxic and dangerous plants while browsing in their yards. But it is better to avoid some dangerous plant species in the yard. Because some plants are very dangerous and can causes death to your chickens.
There are numerous plants that grow naturally in the yard.
Ingesting large enough quantities of those plants can become deadly to your chickens and some plants cause sores, irritation or intestinal damage. Generally chickens rarely eat bitter tasting plants, flowers or weeds.
Some common species of plants and weeds that are dangerous for your chickens are clovers, ragwort, rhubarb, meadow buttercup, potato sprouts, some ivy species and almost all houseplants and flowers that are considered toxic to animals like azaleas, daffodils, irises and oleander. Keep your chickens from blue green algae because this is also very dangerous for chickens.
Garbage, Pesticides and Poisons
Always try to keep your yard clean. And never let your chickens to access the garbage, inorganic debris etc. Because a hungry chicken can mistake for foods and ingest rubber, bits of plastic, metal etc. that can causes serious health problems. Avoid using pesticides, poisons, insecticides or herbicides in the crop field near the chicken coop for preventing your chickens from eating plants, crops or bugs that have been contaminated with these substances.
Strongly Aromatic Foods
Avoid feeding your chickens highly odiferous food products like garlic, onion and such other member of this family. Especially if you are raising chickens for eggs then please avoid feeding this types of odiferous foods to your chicken. Scent of those foods and plants can wind up in the eggs of your chickens and a little change in taste can happen.
Some Human Foods
Some human food and food wastes can be toxic to your chickens, such as raw potato peels, citrus, avocado skins and pits, uncooked beans etc. Chocolate is also harmful for them and avoid sugary and sweet foods. You can feed them table scraps as they are voracious foragers. But never serve them spoiled or moldy foods and a large amount f raw meats. Never feed your chickens boiled or fried eggs. Because some of your chickens may begin raiding their own coop once they get the taste of eggs. Hahaha!
However, I think you have got a clear idea about what not to feed chickens.
Always keep in mind these and be careful about feeding your chickens. If possible, remove all types of harmful things from your yard to avoid risks.
And always take good care of your chickens and enjoy fresh eggs and meat on your table.
